"A Committee of Correspondence"

14 December 2010

Cordesman "sobers up" on Afghanistan AND IRAQ.

Holbrooke is dead. Even in great pain he could not avoid schmoozing the surgical team about his diplomatic task and how obsessed with it he was. This a man who truly let his work kill him. All you Type A people out there! Pay Attention! Nobody is that important or necessary.

Anthony Cordesman should be appointed to replace Holbrooke. He is equally self important and although he was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the "transformational" neocon goals of the wars of our time, he now professes to see the light of rational limitations on national folly.

He, too, likes the sound of his own voice and will make a suitable "guest" for Farid Zakariya and that Rose fellow.

Comments

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Dear Col. Lang:

When he was appointed as the envoy, Holbrooke had said something I found striking. He turned to look at John Negroponte who was present at the announcement and said, "Maybe we'll win this one, Ponte." As I recall both men were in Saigon as FSOs in their younger years.

I didn't know what that meant at the time, but I wonder how many old hands from Vietnam share that sentiment.

Actually, I think any of the following should be appointed to clean up the mess they created:
* G.W. Bush
* R.B. Cheney
* K.W. Rove (all of these wards were about domestic politics anyways)
* C. Rice
* S. Hadley
* R.B. Myers
* P. Wolfowitz
* D. Rumsfeld

Any or all of them would make fine additions to the staff of the great and almighty General David. As a taxpayer, sending them on a free plane ride to Kabul or Kandahar would be an exception use of our money.

I propose a new version of "The Amazing Race" ... contestants (Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Hadley, Myers, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld et al.) will be flown into Kabul airport and given $200 US. Contestants will make their own way (by taxicab, bus, or hitch-hiking) to Kandahar, where they will receive instructions for the next leg of their journey.

Cordesman has this all wrong. The Grand Strategy of the Existential War and the limited war on the American Middle Class is going well, just look at the extension of the Bush tax cuts that a decade ago eliminated a budget surplus and created a deficit. To quote Mr. Cordesman "The Afghan structure of governance, and critical problems in economic opportunity and the distribution of wealth, still present critical problems."

Just substitute "American" for Afghan and you describe both the last and the next US elections.

I vote for sending neither Cordesman nor any on RP's list of candidates. I'll go, I at least learned something from Iraq, namely that I would need some slip on shoes (for throwing at various presidents/prime ministers during important meetings.) And from Afghanistan - that zero of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were from there (or Iraq) and bin Laden ain't around either. Besides, I'm both cheaper and I'll accomplish just as much as any of them, i.e. not a damned thing.

As someone who tries to negotiate disputes between automotive businesses and thier customers in the New York City area, I have wide experience mediating between irreconcilable parties of varying degrees of cynicism and rapacity, and I probably deal with more folks of middle eastern and south asian extraction than any old ambassador ever dreamed about.

PL,
You're probably right, we might deserve Cordesman for our sins, but I can't persuade myself to like the man. I have seen him re-invent himself again and again over the years, almost always pretending to expertise he didn't really have, and I think he will continue that pattern.

I'll miss Holbrooke. For good or ill, any discussion with him was mortal combat. The only time I ever bested him was by surrendering so quickly he was taken by surprise.

Frankly, you are overqualified and overexperienced. And you would cause immense economic harm by getting this messy business wrapped up in a few days, rather than the decades-long timeline that our government seems to prefer.

I don't know about Cordsmans. I've read some of his reports and thought he was full of himself and wrong to boot on Iraq and Afghan.
I don't see anything to recommend people who suddenly "saw the light" after they were proved wrong.

It means they had bad judgement or a faulty/wrong attitude to begin with...why would we want more of that?

Well, he will be back on the Kool-Aid flavor of the month bottle soon, IMO. I agree with Basilisk and Col. Lang.

There are many such "defense intellectuals" sprinkled around inside the Beltway not to mention in think tanks across the US. They get the contracts, grants, awards, etc. for their pseudo and poseur claptrap.

People who really know something threaten the Washington Establishment scene and the political class and are excluded.

Meanwhile the opportunistic spinmeisters like this one get the limelight. A plague on them all.

Hi Pat,
Definitely in the top 2 or 3 of the sleaziest individuals I ever encountered in my career. While it would be pleasant to watch him go down in flames it is not something we (the US) can afford.
Regards,
Russ